Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Regular readers will be used by now to seeing cook-chill factory food murdered by hospital cooks using regeneration trolleys. We’ve seen quiche with a crust that's thicker than roofing felt. I've sampled cold potatoes with all the flavour and allure of an old pair of trainers; while the vegetables have routinely been wetter than an otter's pocket. But tonight I sense someone is at last listening. The food may not be the tastiest 'fayre' in the world but the reheating process has been significantly improved. Please excuse the slightly moody art-house feel to the pictures, it must be the artist in me... or the shock.

Okay, so it’s a fairly tasteless leek and potato soup made from a packet mix. It won’t win any gastronomic awards but it's hot and adequate.

That cheese and onion quiche looks better cooked tonight. It's light and fluffy and the crust for once isn't as tough as a rhino's arse. The hash browns are hot and tasty and only the soggy veg let the side down. This is a big improvement on previous attempts and I'm eating the same as everyone else so it's not just a plate of hand-cooked hospital food especially prepared for me.

More of that roly poly and custard delight but this one is soft enough to eat without cracking your molars in two. How so? It's simply been reheated for the correct time and to the correct temperature before being served as soon as possible. It's not particularly tasty but there's nothing wrong with the cooking.

Remember that this is food that everyone in the hospital is eating. Somewhere in the hospital kitchen someone is making a concerted effort to raise the standards by not cremating the food. Let's hope this continues.

For the first time since I was surgically attached to this
bed some five weeks ago, I’m actually grateful for having been immobilised. I’m thankful
that someone hammered a steel pin the size of a knitting needle through my left
shinbone and then proceeded to attach stout pieces of cord to it, before
threading the twine through a tortuous series of pulleys in an orthopaedic
Gordian knot.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d give anything to be able to walk
again right now, but I’m afraid that mobility could land me in hot water; I’m
afraid I could end up in maximum-security hospital for a very long time. You see, if I had the use of my limbs I’d go into
the next room and smother the occupant’s face with my hyper-allergenic NHS
pillow until they had gasped their last breath, finally allowing me to get a decent
night’s sleep for the first time in two weeks. Sleep deprivation is a well-documented and highly
effective form of torture that can drive the sanest of men to the very edge of
madness.

I suppose I ought to explain why I’m having murderous
thoughts about the occupant of the neighbouring room. The present resident has
taken to pressing her buzzer at ten-minute intervals throughout the night. For
reasons of patient confidentiality I haven’t been able to discover anything about this
woman or why she feels the need to disturb my sleep with such monotonous
regularity. I only know that she’s elderly and she makes a noise similar to a fox
with its leg caught in a gin trap. She makes a blood-curdling screech whenever
she’s not pressing her buzzer.

I’m not an impatient man nor am I totally without compassion but
there comes a time when my sleep has been so wilfully destroyed that someone must
pay with their life. Imagine being poked with a large stick each time your
eyelids start to close. Imagine every time your head dropped someone came up behind you and
burst a balloon.

If I were the ward manager (whatever happened to matrons?) I’d confiscate the old woman’s buzzer and
render her mouth inoperative with a stout length of duck tape. If that seems harsh then perhaps it could be made clear to the woman that she may only use her buzzer a
maximum of three times in any twelve-hour period. Additional buzzes would render
her klaxon progressively quieter while administering a mild electric shock.

Ideally I’d like it if she were transferred to another ward
(preferably in a different hospital at the other end of the country) and then perhaps the charming
gentleman in Room 4 (me) could be spared the old woman’s caterwauling and she in turn could avoid suffocation by a deranged individual with bags under his eyes the size of
rubbish sacks.

Not for a moment did I think I might be in danger
while staying here under the care of the NHS. The nurses and doctors take great
efforts to shield me from infection and nasty things like used needles or
overdoses of drugs. I mean, things have got so good these days some
doctors even wash their hands and tuck their ties in their shirts before
examining you.

But all that care isn’t worth a row of beans while a vicious
and dangerous killer stalks the wards of the nation’s homes and hospitals. Of
course, I’m talking about… biscuits.

There’s nothing we Brits like more than a nice sit down
and a cup of tea to dunk our afternoon biscuits in. However, a recent survey
carried out by Mindlab International discovered that half of all Britons had at some time been injured by a biscuit, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Seriously! I’m not making this stuff up. The injuries
suffered ranged from breaking teeth on biscuits to scalding mouths on hot tea
or coffee while dunking said biscuits. A staggering 25 million people have so far been affected by
these ruthless snacks with more than 500 individuals being hospitalised by various
types of cookies.

And which biscuit is the worst offender? Step forward
the humble Custard Cream It’s always the quiet ones you have to watch. This popular
biscuit is routinely handed out on the ward at teatime along with chocolate
Bourbons. The Custard Cream beat 15 other biscuit types to take the crown of killer cookie, with a risk index rating of 5.63. The safest biscuits were Jaffa
Cakes with a much safer score of 1.16.

Up to one third of adults also reported that they’d had suffered a
serious mishap when dunking a Digestive or trying to fish the remnants of a
collapsed ‘Diggie’ from their teacup. Even more worrying is the 28 per cent of those surveyed who had
choked on crumbs and the one in ten who had broken a tooth or filling while biting a
biscuit.

However, perhaps most concerning of all were the three per
cent of people who had managed to poke themselves in the eye with a biscuit. Even more bizarrely were the seven
per cent who managed to be bitten by a pet or “other wild animal” trying to
snatch their biscuits.

Mindlab International director Dr David Lewis said: “We
tested the physical properties of 15 popular biscuit types, along with
aspects of their consumption such as ‘dunkability’ and crumb dispersal.”

With all these dangers existing in our local hospital, I find it impossible to believe that some elf ’n’safety Nazi hasn’t spotted this ‘accident waiting to happen’ and banned Custard Creams from the ward. I think I’m going to stick to cake if I want to get out of here in one piece.

Monday, 28 September 2009

There's hardly any time left to vote for your choice of which TV chef should sort out the NHS catering service. I'm disappointed that my favourites, The Hairy Bikers, are not in the lead. I encourage you to start voting for them now before I send round an extra-large portion of Corned-beef Lattice Pie and peas.

I feel rather like a fussy cat that’s just been indulged after turning his nose up at anything less than Whiskas. This lunch has just disappeared... completely and absolutely. Fresh vegetables and poached salmon flavoured with dill. The only problem is, I rather suspect I have died and gone to heaven or else this is a dream and I'll wake up to a serving of lamb pie.

I’ve been rumbled, haven’t I?

UPDATE: It’s been nearly two hours since I ate my lunch and I cannot believe how much better I feel. My energy and concentration levels have been boosted. I guess you are what you eat.

This weekend an article in The Sunday Times fired up my
imagination and gave me a novel idea for solving any shortfalls in the NHS
budget over the coming years as we struggle to get our country’s finances back
in the black.

It appears that a number of stately homes and country houses
are turning to the sex market to help cover their... er… bills. Apparently,
renting your castle out for a porn film shoot can pull in a handy £5000 a time,
which is probably enough to help plug that leak in the east wing and still
leave one with change left over to replace a tired gargoyle with something that
has a more effective spurt.

Now I know what you’re thinking; that’s a million miles away
from the atmosphere of your average hospital, but surely there must be a germ of an idea here. The orthopaedic ward may not be a suitable set for a gothic
bodice-ripping movie, but how about a sex and drugs party at the weekend?

Emma Sayle, is the owner of Killing Kittens, a club for what
she calls the “sexually elite”. Her guests are electrified by the thought of
orgying under gilt chandeliers, or in front of “vast marble fireplaces” and
enjoy seeing naked bodies slinking around in faded Georgian splendour. “It
sounds weird,” says a 29-year-old regular, “but I like to think how many people
have had sex in these huge rooms before me — even hundreds of years ago.”

Now imagine the same sort of thing if all the guests were
allowed to dress up in theatre scrubs or nurses uniforms and have full use of
the operating theatre, the traction beds, or even the slabs in the pathology
morgue. Now do you get my drift?

All those people who find ER and Gray’s Anatomy get their pulses
pumping that little bit faster would absolutely love it. Stir in the temptation
of a drug cabinet stuffed full of opiates and assorted stimulants and we’re
talking about one hell of a racy party. Hey… we could even open up the hospital
pharmacy for a Supermarket Sweep for those willing to pay extra.

Dungeon breaks are also a popular part of this new trend in stately
home finance and involve dungeons being kitted out with the very latest S&M
paraphernalia for cruel sex. Now I know your average NHS hospital probably
doesn’t have a dungeon, but who’s to say that fitting a few chains and racks in
the kitchens wouldn’t achieve the same effect? Plus there’s the excitement and
the thought of all those patients who are going to suffer later eating the cruel
food produced in the very same place in which one’s had a major bondage
session.

I realize there might be a few hygiene issues with this last
suggestion but I’m sure someone could give the kitchen a clean before the couples
got down to their whipping and beating.

There may be shortages of certain non-essential resources in the NHS, things like nurses, drugs or clean bedding, but there’s one indispensable item that doesn’t appear to be in short supply: consultants – management consultants.

The Department of Health currently pisses away between £350
- £600 million each year on employing management consultants. The majority of their ‘work’ has little to do with patient care. Incidentally, I wonder how long it will be before they rebrand themselves as ‘The Department of Wellbeing’. It must be time for a new
logo and some salary increases, surely?

The NHS recently drafted in consultants McKinsey to identify
where savings could be made. Somehow those suggested savings didn’t include
management consultants or unnecessary bureaucracy. According to Private Eye,
the bloated new bureaucracy of Primary Health Trusts has ballooned faster than
Jordan’s breasts, and the admin bill alone runs at £1.2 billion per annum.

The Department of Health suggests this cost is due to the
trusts ‘attempting to drive forward system change’. No, I don’t understand what
that bollocks means either. However, what I do understand is that commercial
directors employed by these new trusts can enjoy salaries starting at
around £100,000 a year.

With that sort of money being flushed down the pan it’s no
wonder there’s nothing left in the budget for decent food.

What is all this Twitter nonsense about? No sooner do I get the hang of blogging than everyone is asking: “Do you tweet?”. To which I normally reply: “only if I’m on a high-fibre diet.”

For those who don’t know, Twitter is a personal blog that’s limited to tweets of just 140 characters. It’s like sending out a one-line mass text message to all your friends… or Followers, as one's Twitter acolytes are known.

Anyway, it appears that Twitter has become increasingly popular with trainee doctors and other younger members of the medical profession. This has prompted a researcher with an ology in ‘stating the bleedin’ obvious’ to claim that tweets might breach patient confidentiality.

The researcher, Dr Katherine Chretien of the Washington DC VA Medical Center, said that medical students may not be aware of how online posting can reflect negatively on medical professionalism or jeopardise their careers.

I can imagine just the sort of thing being twittered…

“Mrs Smith just passed an enormous motion in Room 3!” or “Just gave Mr Johnson a pee bottle with a big hole in it… snigger!”

Dr Chretien said many of the Twitters included profanity and discriminatory language as well as sexually suggestive material and photos showing drunkenness or illicit drug use.

Hello… we’re talking about medical students here. What the hell does she expect? Has the woman never seen Green Wing or watched an Episode of Dr In The House? Medics are notorious for that sort of thing. I once went to a party where the guests were mostly from the medical profession and was staggered by the amount of alcohol consumed and how many of them were smoking. Gallows’ humour it seems is an essential emotional escape valve for those who have to work with the sick, the dying and the terminally stupid.

"Sharing patient stories that are de-identified and respectful, as health professionals might do on personal blogs, can encourage reflection, empathy and understanding,” said the ever-so-earnest Dr Chretien.

"However, content may risk violation of patient privacy, even without using names or other identifiers," the puritan warned.

Oh for heaven’s sake! Lighten up, will you? As long as no names or locations are used then where’s the harm? She’ll be saying jokes are ‘verboten’ next. Why is it that ‘researchers’ always seem totally devoid of a sense of humour or common sense?

The researchers are so bothered by all this naughty blogging lark they think part of a doctor’s training should involve learning how to use Privacy settings on Facebook and Twitter responsibly.

Frankly I’d rather doctors spent their training improving their bedside manner or learning how to put a canula in the back of my hand without it feeling like I've just been shot with an elephant rifle.

Friday, 25 September 2009

Our poll to discover who the public would like to see giving NHS management a good kicking over the standard of food served in our hospitals has already seen more than 900 votes cast. There is a worrying surge of support for the Blessed St Delia of Norwich. Our IT boffins are currently trying to trace the traffic to see if any vote rigging is going on. Ms Smith’s publicist, a Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claims St Delia’s popularity is grounded in the love of the grateful people of England for her. Meanwhile, Jamie Oliver’s popularity is slowing, but coming up on the inside are those loveable hairy bikers Si and Dave.

But we need more people to vote. There are just three days left before the polls close. So vote early and vote often! Er... no. Just vote the once. Are you listening, Delia?

I'm not sure if it's kindness or a fiendishly clever PR strategy to take the wind out of my sails, but today I received another delicious cheese and ham panini. This was made by the same chefs who reheat the factory food that the hospital normally serves. It shows that the staff are more than capable of producing good quality and tasty food which is reasonably well presented. Simples!

Desperate situations call for desperate measures… like the
prisoner in a British jail who recently managed to get himself drunk on the alcohol-based
hand gel that was brought into the prison to counteract the threat of swine
flu.

Now, I’ll admit that being banged up in a hospital on high-strength
painkillers and antibiotics strong enough to scare the shit out of MRSA can and
does limit one’s opportunities for the occasional snifter. Before long you find
yourself dreaming of long-forgotten little pleasures like an ice-cold beer on a
scorching summer’s day or the delicious blackcurrant bouquet of a fruity
Australian Shiraz on a winter’s eve.

In hospital, such thoughts can drive a sane man to the very edge
of madness in much the same way as the thought of a clear cold stream of water
can finish off a poor soul lost in the Sahara.

For some reason, British hospitals are total no-go areas for life’s
little pleasures like alcohol and tobacco. You can have as much Smack, morphine
and other opiates that come round on the drugs trolley in the same way
that desserts used to be wheeled around restaurants, but mention the
possibility of a small glass of cider or a sweet sherry with your meal, and the
Substance Abuse Counsellor will be summoned just as soon as an appropriate note
can be scribbled into your medical notes.

So this brings me back to the story of the British prisoner
drinking hand gel in order to relieve the monotony of institutional life. The old
lag in question had purloined a gel dispenser and then mixed it with fruit juice, water and sugar before proceeding to climb out of his tree.

I particularly enjoyed the quote from Andy Fear, a spokesman
for the Prison Officers’ Association, who told the BBC:

“We were informed of an incident within hours of the gel
being available. In one of the wings it is believed an inmate was using it
inappropriately.

“When you get something called alcohol gel you can see what
is going to happen. We had concerns when we heard these were being given to
inmates. You don't want drunk prisoners running around the prison.”

I should think not, too! No more than you’d want patients
running up down the ward smashed out of their minds.

Amazingly, this isn’t the first time that someone has
decided to mix a Swine Flu Sling in the absence of any other tipple. Last March
The Royal Bournemouth Hospital announced that it was one of many hospitals that
had taken the precaution of removing alcohol-based hand-cleaning gel from
reception areas in a bid to stop visitors drinking it. Such is the desperate
level of life here in the UK that people are obviously stopping off at the
hospital on the way home from work for a ‘quick gel’ with their mates. I knew
we were in a recession, but I never realized it was that bad.

Anyway, all this talk of hand gel has caused me to work up a
perishing thirst. So in the absence of a nice chilled bottle of Chablis to slake my hankering for booze, I think
I’ll have a large tot of Purell Gel with my tuna and potato surprise tonight.

Thursday, 24 September 2009

Heston Blumenthal, owner of the three Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, is apparently a Government collaborator. According to the website caterersearch.com, he told delegates at the Cheltenham Science Festival in Gloucester that he is a year into a Government-backed project with the NHS and Reading University to improve hospital food.

Speaking this summer, the highly inventive chef said the project was looking at ways to rejuvenate the dining environment in hospital and improve the flavour of food in the mouth. FFS... where else would you want to improve the flavour of food?

Heston isn’t the first TV chef to try to reform NHS catering. The Better Hospital Food Programme (which was scrapped in 2006) was launched by the Department for Health in 2001 with Lloyd Grossman as its mascot.

Earlier this year, Heston’s restaurant suffered an outbreak of a vomiting and diarrhoea virus which closed the Fat Duck for three weeks. I’m not really sure the NHS needs something like that. After all, some hospitals are perfectly capable of doing that sort of thing on their own!

I think I’ve been rumbled and someone has made a big effort with the vegetable portion but I still don't understand why broccoli has to be boiled within an inch of its life. I'm amazed it managed to stay so green and yet be so wet. The vitamins will have been boiled away completely. Such a shame.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave in Tora Bora (or a
bunker in Downing Street) for the past year or two, it can’t possibly have
escaped your notice that the country is in a bit of a financial squeeze… the
technical term is ‘fiscally fucked’. We are spent out, brassic, broke, bust,
and impecunious. We are in deep financial shit.

The country is going to have to make one or two economies on
a few non-essential items like health, education and defence. Fortunately some
of the more essential services such as the British Potato Council or the Energy
Saving Trust will, thank God, be spared savage cuts.

So it’s clear that we’re going to have to make some serious
savings. Now if anyone suggests even laying a finger on the kit needed to keep our brave troops in Afghanistan safe then they’re going to be on the
receiving end of a full colonoscopy and a ice-cold enema from my nurse.
However, at the risk of being shot down, I think we can actually make some
savings in the defence budget while actually increasing the protection and weaponry
of our brave lads and lasses currently up the wrong end of the Khyber Pass.

I’m indebted to a reader emailing from Camp X in Afghanistan
who has suggested that the peas that keep appearing on my plate are being
misdirected. It’s his considered professional opinion that the peas are of
sufficient calibre to take out a Taliban from at least 200 yards. What’s more,
these deadly weapons are cheap, environmentally friendly and available in
enormous quantities at a hospital near you. All you need is a pea-shooter, a
canister of compressed air and a Tally in your crosshairs.

Of course, if you manage to catch your Taliban alive it
could be very useful for intelligence purposes to interrogate the chap to glean
some intelligence and move forward with more peas to take out a few more of the
scallies. Unfortunately, a few weak-kneed liberal types have taken exception to
several effective methods of persuasion - such as waterboarding, sleep
deprivation and hooding – which are now apparently illegal and frowned upon. It’s clear that other cost-effective methods (remember that
we’re broke) are needed in order to extract information from the enemy.

Well, I think I’ve found the answer. Since almost 50% of
hospital food is wasted we have a free and virtually inexhaustible supply of cold
and congealed hospital dinners that can be shipped out to Afghanistan. I was
going to suggest using the most lethal forms of these weapons of mass
indigestion: pork mince in onions. Then it struck me that there would be
uproar from the Birkenstock-wearing and tofu-eating types who would complain about feeding pork to the Taliban.
Point taken, but we still have Crofter’s Hotpot or Harvest Pie left in reserve; and let’s not forget the spotted dick with lumpy custard.

One dose of any of these ‘cruel and unusual’ weapons would
have your average Tally singing like a canary and wouldn't even contravene the Geneva
Convention. And the cost to the taxpayer: a big fat zero. In fact, it would even be good for
the environment… there’s nothing like a good bit of recycling.

A cheese and ham panini purloined for me by one of the lovely members of staff working on the ward. I cannot begin to describe the explosion of taste, texture and sheer ecstasy that this little creation from the staff canteen has brought me. Time to close down the blog if things keep on like this!

It was a long and sleepless night for me last night. I was wracked with worry and fear. I simply couldn’t nod off despite the large liquid morphine nightcap that nurse brought round along with the bromide just before lights out. Unfortunately, being in traction, I am denied the pleasure of being able to toss and turn in my sleep so I simply had to lie on my back and make periodic pathetic moaning noises… but that’s another matter.

And what was the reason for this lack of sleep? Simple… there are a lot of workers in this hospital from all over the world and I was wondering how on earth I was going to be able to check all their passports to see if they are legally entitled to work here. I don’t even have a photocopier in my room to make copies of those vital visas and work permits. Am I committing an offence when that worker comes into my room to sweep the floor or mop my fevered brow? My overseas readers may not know that the Attorney General of this poor benighted isle has been caught red-handed employing someone not entitled to work in the UK. It’s an easy mistake to make… unless you happen to be the person who drafted the legislation in the first place. Ignorance simply won’t wash in this case

Of course, if I were a Government minister this wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem since the normal rules do not apply to our lords and masters. The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, does however seem to be the first cabinet minster to actually have had their collar felt has for breaking the law and received an eye-watering fixed-penalty fine of £5000 for not copying her Tongan housekeeper’s passport. I wonder what Clem Atlee or Hugh Gaitskill would make of the idea of a Labour cabinet minister employing their own Tongan housekeeper and, one assumes, other assorted servants, lackeys and houseboys.

While we’re on the subject of titles, I’ve been sitting here for some time thinking that I would quite like a title myself; preferably I’d like to be a Baron. There’s something really raffish about the title of Baron. It conjures up pictures of First World War German aces with impossibly long moustaches, having dog fights in triplanes and shooting down Sopwith Camels. There’s a certain cachet about it… well, there was until Baron Mandleson of of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham (why choose one location when you can have two?) spoiled it all by being made a Baron. However, I understand he may unbaron himself should he seek higher office if Gordon Brown ‘goes Gonzo’.

The advantages of being a Baron? Well, can you imagine ringing The Ivy and asking for a table?

“Good evening. I wonder if you might have a table for two for tomorrow night.”

“I’m sorry sir, the restaurant is fully booked for the next six months.”

“Perhaps you could possibly look again at your bookings? It’s Baron Traction of Blogtown in the County of Blogshire here, by the way.”

“Ah yes, my Lord. It would appear that we do have a last-minute cancellation that had escaped my notice.”

When I get out of here getting into the Lords is going to be my next project. If I’m unable to work then I’m going to do my best to bury my snout deep in the Westminster trough since it’s obviously a lot easier than trying to get Disability Living Allowance out of the Department of Work and Pensions.

Notes from a hospital bed

Fractured freelance journalist now released from traction and walking again. Recuperating at home with good food and fine friends. Growing increasingly angry about the scandal of nutritional neglect in our hospitals.